Customer Reviews

Making a Living While Making a Difference: A Guide to Creating Careers With a Conscience

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Melissa Everett has done all of us a great service by writing this book. Her ten-step process alone is worth the price of admission. As a career advisor with The Environmental Careers Organization, I tell anyone interested in a socially-responsible career - get this book!

I'm going to offer a point of view different from the rest. I think this book focusses almost exclusively on environmental issues, and practically equates "making a difference" to "saving the environment". Well, yes, there are remarks about "improving society", but no clear path to doing any of those things. (...) The book does not contain any lead into careers that address world poverty or undernourished children or any of the other burning issues that affect the world everyday, unlike a dwindling dolphin population. Not that I don't think that a dwindling dolphin population is an important issue, but it is less important than starving children groping through some rubble heap in search of food. In fact, unless that part of the "starving population" is reeled out of poverty, they will continue to have dire impact on the environment faster than any socially-responsible fund manager can write out "green" dividend checks. This book provides "first-world denizens" the distorted view that fixing environmental issues is all there is to it (and calls itself "The Expanded Guide"). This is most likely related to the author's own background and focus on environmental issues. But it doesn't measure up for me.

(From Planeta Journal) - This is a guide to "creating careers with a conscience." Can we ask for anything less? Authored by Melissa Everett, this second edition is an excellent resource guide for anyone interested in making the world a better place. The book provides a 10-step program for career development and offers advice to career counselors. It is an imaginative and valuable tool for anyone thinking about their career. Highly recommended.

As you move through college you learn simple things like find out what makes you happy and do more of that. At least that's the way my undergraduate experience evolved. However, after reading Melissa Everett's book I realized that my happiness is not the only issue at hand in planning the shape of my career. We all have a responsibility to our families, communities, moral and ethical codes, as well as our dreams. If you've felt that you aren't participating in a larger pattern that connects your environment, family life, work life with a sense of responsibility, then you should read this book. There are helpful and thoughtful reflective exercises, logical advice as well as tons of examples from real lives that illustrate how you can make change in your life toward deliberate responsibility and empowerment. The book examines our personal growth and maturation as well as our current situation through a series of workbook style exercises and clearly stated topics. If you are unhappy with work or your life, I would suggest you invest in this book.